{"id":5524,"date":"2016-01-26T11:27:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T16:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/"},"modified":"2016-02-01T13:04:10","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T18:04:10","slug":"federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/","title":{"rendered":"Federation’s Lionel Uzan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Out of offices in Paris and Los Angeles, Federation Entertainment has been steadily building a diverse slate of scripted projects, from the French-language series\u00a0Le Bureau des L<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>gendes<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Marseille<\/em>\u00a0to the Israeli drama\u00a0Hostages<\/em>, using a variety of co-production, financing and distribution models. Founded by Pascal Breton, the venture, run by managing director and partner Lionel Uzan, is looking to ride the wave of demand for international drama with its expanding slate. Uzan tells\u00a0TV Drama Weekly<\/em>\u00a0about trends in the market and what\u2019s ahead for the company.<\/p>\n

\"***Image***\"TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0What are some of the new dramas you\u2019re working on at Federation?
\nUZAN:<\/strong>\u00a0In terms of European drama, we have six series either shooting or in post-production, from diverse sources. The company started with French-speaking series. Right now we have two in post-production. The first is season two of a show we produce for CANAL+, called\u00a0The Bureau\u00a0<\/em>(Le Bureau des L<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>gendes<\/em>). The second is\u00a0Marseille\u00a0<\/em>for Netflix. We also have local European dramas, and we have a big business going on with Israel. We are post-producing season two of\u00a0Hostages<\/em>. We have two Scandinavian series, coming out of Finland. One is being delivered now; it\u2019s called\u00a0Replacements<\/em>. A second one is being edited now, called\u00a0Bordertown<\/em>. We announced at the end of 2015 that we are the French producing component on an English-language series called\u00a0The Collection<\/em>from Lookout Point in the U.K., [with] BBC Worldwide and Amazon as the main financial partners and co-producers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very diverse slate.\u00a0Marseille\u00a0<\/em>is more of an internal production.\u00a0The Bureau<\/em>is part of an overall deal we have with Eric Rochant, the director, and his producing partner, Alex Berger. With the Israeli and Scandinavian producers it\u2019s also co-productions. And on\u00a0The Collection<\/em>, Lookout Point came to us to find the right French partner.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0What kind of international demand are you seeing for scripted product out of France?
\nUZAN:<\/strong>\u00a0I would say the interest is strong in the sense that from every territory, at the minimum from the other European countries and from the U.S., everybody is following very closely what\u2019s happening and every single new project. Then, when the show is ready and it\u2019s been shown to everyone, it\u2019s up to the quality of the series, the originality of the series. The level of interest is very high and it\u2019s impressive to see that the buyers have lots of knowledge of what\u2019s happening in France. I\u2019m not sure that was the case five years ago. But the wave of good programming from CANAL+ or France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions or TF1, and\u00a0The Returned<\/em>\u00a0being the huge blockbuster that it was, have raised the level of interest very clearly, whether it\u2019s for the original series or for remakes. But not every French series finds buyers and\/or an audience.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve heard that when you\u2019re dealing with non-English-language product, you really need a strong hook to get the buyers\u2019 attention.
\nUZAN:<\/strong>\u00a0Exactly. It\u2019s niche programming. It\u2019s not that some can\u2019t find a wide audience. I think\u00a0The Returned<\/em>\u00a0proved that is very possible.\u00a0Hostages<\/em>\u00a0is another example. It was shown on BBC Four in the U.K. We\u2019ve seen it with lots of Scandinavian dramas. The barrier of the language is still there, but it isn’t as high as it used to be. And some totally break through:\u00a0The Killing<\/em>,\u00a0The Returned<\/em>, etc.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0Is there still strong demand for the Scandi series?
\nUZAN:<\/strong>\u00a0There\u2019s still very strong interest. When you look at what is still coming out of Scandinavia, whether it\u2019s Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, it\u2019s still very, very good. Maybe there\u2019s less buzz\u2014in a sense the territory has been discovered, so it\u2019s not a new frontier anymore. But the output is still super strong. For us partnering with European producers on European projects, it\u2019s pretty much the first territory we tried to work with. They have very strong writers, directors and actors.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0What\u2019s the potential for more cross-European co-pros?
\nUZAN:<\/strong>\u00a0For English-language shows it\u2019s all the rage. And partnership has become the flavor of the month, which is great. English-speaking European dramas meant to be co-produced\u2014in the sense that they need artistic input or co-financing\u2014is a big trend and I don\u2019t see that going down. It\u2019s also interesting to see some of the U.S. studios, mini studios, interested in being involved in purely European dramas. On the co-productions where one of the languages is dominant, let\u2019s say a Franco-German co-production purely in French or purely in German, it is a bit more difficult. I see the interest of people who want to make a project like that, but it\u2019s difficult to find the right subjects. You need to have it in the artistic DNA of the project. If you try to force it, it just doesn’t work.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0How much have OTT platforms changed the way you finance and distribute drama?
\nUZAN:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s shifted in a big way, with some clear advantages, and some things that are just more difficult to address. [Having] more buyers is always good! It creates competition, which is good. What\u2019s difficult is how to organize your windows. That\u2019s becoming complex. OTT platforms started buying locally and now it\u2019s about buying global rights. So what does it mean for a distributor in terms of windowing? What do you favor in terms of deals? Is it good to do a global deal? Is it better to sell territory by territory? What do you do if you get an offer out of Germany from a broadcaster, but you know if you make that sale then maybe a deal with a platform that wants to have the major European territories might be at stake? It\u2019s that complexity we have to address. And I think it\u2019s going to be more and more complex.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0What are your goals for Federation\u2019s drama business in the year ahead?
\nUZAN:<\/strong>\u00a0[To] at least keep up in terms of the volume of production. We\u2019re at a good level. We\u2019re also doing kids\u2019 programming. So, by adding our kids\u2019 programming to our drama series, I hope we are closer to eight to ten shows by 2017-18. And we want to see renewals on the shows we have already. Now we\u2019re on season two of\u00a0The Bureau<\/em>; the level of interest from buyers has never been higher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The partner and managing director talks about trends in the market and what\u2019s ahead for the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":5525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[215,216],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","tag-federation-entertainment","tag-lionel-uzan","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nFederation's Lionel Uzan - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Federation's Lionel Uzan - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The partner and managing director talks about trends in the market and what\u2019s ahead for the company.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-26T16:27:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-02-01T18:04:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/09\/2016-01-26-Lionel-Uzan-th.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/\",\"name\":\"Federation's Lionel Uzan - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-26T16:27:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-02-01T18:04:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/federation-entertainments-lionel-uzan\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Federation’s Lionel Uzan\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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